Educator Competence – Ready for Day One? Maybe not: What two new reports show about teacher preparation

Educator Competence – (1) I find it hard to believe that we will never find the right cocktail of teacher requirements….unless we continue with the one size fits all teaching paradigm…then it will never happen, because the one size fits all teaching methodology is systemically flawed, only able to produce, at best, for the “middle” 20-30% of students, superficial initial understanding that is soon forgotten

(2) The next approach, which is also systemically flawed, is for each and every teacher to integrate appropriate pedagogy into their classroom. Because there are so many variables, it’s almost impossible for individual teachers to be subject matter experts AND learning design experts.

(3) The solution: Change educational paradigms from one size fits all teaching to differentiated learning, using educationally innovative software, that seamlessly integrates, appropriate pedagogy. Key content is uploaded into the software and each student gets what they need, when they need it, at a pace that works for them, delivered to them on their own common device. Educators then become professional learning facilitators, in a flipped and blended learning environment, coaching and mentoring individual students, focusing on deep, 21st century adaptive learning skills, with sustained individual performance improvement outcomes as the end goal.

None of the items under (3) above will consistently happen using (1) or (2) methodology..(1) is using a methodology that doesn’t deliver learning, (2) has too many variables to deliver consistent results

(3) is the only solution that systematically delivers adaptive learning, with the ability to train educators about pedagogy and professional, individual student, ongoing facilitation that delivers adaptive skills, that result in sustained individual student performance improvement

Maintaining the current paradigm will not improve teacher and student outcomes. The current one size fits all teaching paradigm is the problem. Students do not learn this way.

Educator Competence – Is it possible to ensure that all teachers are effective from the first day they walk into the classroom to work? Teacher quality policies assume that it is. But what if it isn’t?

That’s the question Chad Aldeman and I explore in two new reports, published earlier this week by Bellwether Education Partners.

Decades of education-reform efforts focused on trying to improve the quality of teacher preparation to increase the effectiveness of first-year teachers.

To date, most reforms have done so through so-called inputs. These reforms try to precisely define who can become a teacher, and what sort of preparation she must complete before entering a classroom. Some states, for example, require that programs only admit teacher candidates with a certainGPAor SAT or ACT score. Other states impose coursework requirements, like specific content credits and clinical experiences.

“Perhaps most importantly, we must give people better information to make more informed choices, to drive continuous improvement, and to invest in learning — to the extent that we can — what makes a good teacher.”

Still others have sought to improve preparation by focusing on outcomes instead. It’s an elegant theory of change: States loosen input requirements and give providers more freedom over design, and then make decisions about program quality based on the success of their teachers. States identify programs as poor, satisfactory or excellent, and “consumers” — prospective teachers and potential employers — can act on that information.

But there are flaws in all of these efforts — such serious flaws that it’s unclear if we’ll ever be able to guarantee a teacher will be ready on Day One.

To begin with, there’s little evidence that the carefully crafted inputs matter much. Take the research on GPA and SAT scores. Somestudies suggest that these screens can predict teacher effectiveness, but the differences are small, and there’s no clear tipping point guiding states on where to set their expectations. The evidence on coursework and clinical experience, certification requirements and certification pathways is even weaker. In other words, some great teachers are products of a traditional preparation program with a standard student teaching experience, while others do just as well with barely any prior training. The reverse is equally true: Some bad teachers completed well-designed traditional preparation programs, and others went through alternative certification programs. We don’t know the mix of inputs that promises an effective teacher.

On the other hand, switching our focus to outcomes won’t guarantee quality, either. An outcomes-based accountability system assumes that we can discern meaningful differences across preparation programs. Yet recent studies from Missouri and Texas suggest that we can’t. In Missouri, researchers reviewed three years of classroom performance records for more than 1,300 teachers, all of whom had recently graduated from one of the state’s major preparation programs. In the Texas study, researchers looked at nearly 6,300 new math teachers and 5,000 new reading teachers from 100 preparation programs of all types. The researchers in both studies reached the same conclusion: the differences between programs are very small — practically indistinguishable — while almost all of the variation in preparation quality occurs within programs. Studies from North Carolina and Washington State found similar results.

The research on inputs and outcomes is tightly linked. Because states regulate inputs so closely, there’s little incentive — and considerable risk — to do anything different. So teacher prep providers, with some notable exceptions, generally operate programs that look similar, and those similar programs produce completers of a similar caliber.